


Homecoming

by Tanaqui



Series: Raven and Gold (Lord of the Rings) [4]
Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-01
Updated: 2005-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/pseuds/Tanaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/160803">The Influence of Kindred Desires</a>. On their return to Minas Tirith after their wedding, Faramir and Éowyn must begin to learn what it takes to be married once the honeymoon is over. Slight dub-con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

They arrived at the City in the early evening, having pushed the horses hard to cross the final miles of the Pelennor before dusk. Despite her weariness at the extra distance they had travelled that day, Éowyn looked around with interest as they crossed the townlands. Much progress had been made to mend the devastation of battle in the year since she had last ridden this road, though it seemed there was still a great deal to be done.

The drivers of a plough team, plodding wearily home after a day of toil, called out a happy greeting to their returning Steward as they passed. Women rested their backs from tending rows of seedlings, leaned on their hoes, and waved at the procession. Dogs barked and children squealed in play in the yards of farmhouses, where new thatch glowed gold in the setting sun. In other places, fresh timbers gleamed palely alongside the old, and ladders reached to half-mended roofs.

Éowyn was reminded of the rich vales of the Westfold. As the shadow of the White City and the mountain mass behind it crept across the land, she hoped her duties would take her often out of the paved circles, where so little grew. It would be far pleasanter to travel the packed-earth lanes that, from time to time, branched off from the main road to run between hedges showing pink-tipped shoots and half-furled pale green leaves.

She turned from the fields and saw a look of quiet satisfaction settle on her husband's face as he also twisted his head from side to side, checking on how the work had progressed in the weeks he had been away. He had spoken often of their new home, but this one expression was more eloquent than all his words in conveying his love of his land. Her eyes felt hot with unshed tears as she considered once more how kindly fate had dealt with her when she had been so undeserving.

She edged Windfola closer to Neriend, the horse she had presented to Faramir soon after their wedding. She had made the gift after he had spoken to her of the new home he was building for them: white walls nestled in a long, gently sloping green valley that opened to the south and west among the hills of Emyn Arnen; a stream that chattered over upland rocks before being dammed into fishponds and garden ponds, after which its slid smoothly past pastures for their horses and cool groves of fruit trees. Then his face had clouded.

"I fear I must spend many days in the Citadel on business," he told her, as they lay curved together in a warm tangle of limbs and covers, savouring what they had shared. They had already fallen into the habit of talking of past and future between lovemaking and sleeping. He added, frowning, "'Tis not far if one has a fast horse and I shall return when I can. And you will visit with me often I am sure. But there will be many nights we must spend apart."

"Then I shall see that you have the swiftest and surest horse in all Gondor!" she had laughed, smoothing the frown away with her hand and kissing him to show him what he would be missing if he did not return.

The next day she had taken him down to the paddock and gifted him with the speediest of her stock. Now, a month later, she said to him, "I am sure everything progresses well in Ithilien also." Her voice was soft, meant for his ears alone and not those of their companions.

He turned a surprised face to her. "Did the elves give you gifts other than my scabbard, that you can read minds?" he exclaimed.

She laughed, glad to have caught him off guard for once. He read her too shrewdly for her often to have the chance to conceal her thoughts. "No. The only gift I have is that I love my husband. I know what he loves, and I hope I will come to love it too."

"You will." He smiled at her, reaching out to squeeze her fingers for a moment where they lay on Windfola's reins. As always, his touch seemed to her like the first warm sun of spring after the dark days of winter.

It was not long before the procession reached the Gate. There, Éowyn saw, wild flowers had sprung up between the new blades of grass, smoothing over the churned and trampled bare earth of the year before. They passed into the first circle and went on to climb the winding streets of the city. Scaffolding made the roads narrow; warm light, the smells of cooking and cheerful voices spilled out from windows, speaking of homeliness and comfort to her. At each level, the lords and ladies who had accompanied them turned away in small parties to their townhouses or to hired lodgings. At last only Queen Arwen and her retinue kept their party company as they came to the gates of the Citadel.

A tall, dark-haired man stepped out of the shadows. Éowyn, glancing at him briefly and taking in his fine but plain clothing before she swung round to signal to the maid who had accompanied her from Edoras, supposed he must be some courtier whose role it was to oversee their arrival. Then she turned back sharply as the Queen flung herself off her horse to be welcomed home by her husband.

Éowyn dismounted more slowly. _How could I not recognise him?_ she chided herself. _So many of these men of Gondor are much like one another, 'tis true–._ It had taken her careful observation over several days before she could be sure of separating her husband's three cousins from each other and addressing them correctly. _And I have not seen him in many months, nor did I expect him to be here. Yet did I not once think I would carry the memory of his face in my heart unto my death? It seems that, though he is become my king, he is now but one fine lord amongst many to me._

Unbuckling her saddlebags, and wondering at this change, she covertly watched the king's eager greeting of his wife. There had been a time when it would have pained her to see him bestow such affection on another; she had been glad there had been excuses enough to hold her in Rohan when Arwen's bridal escort had passed through Edoras. Now she found she did not envy the Queen those kisses, nor even that she had a husband who would display his feelings so openly.

Only once had Faramir kissed her with such passion in public: high on the walls and visible to all. Her memory of it was sweet yet muted by her surprise, lying over her recollections like fine gauze, at the abrupt change in his manner. Since then, he had been shy in company: apart from his natural reticence, she suspected he did not enjoy rousing passions in them that they could not then satisfy. And while others might measure his reserve against the king's, she had no need for Faramir to display the same passion in public that she had ample proof of in private. _When all of Gondor has claims upon him,_ she thought with a smile, _do I not rejoice that there is a part of my husband he keeps for me alone?_

As she handed her saddlebags to the maid, she could hear Faramir behind her dismissing the guard to their barracks and organising the servants. She leaned into Windfola's strong neck for a moment, sorry that their journey was over and he must be sent to unfamiliar lodgings in this stony city. She reached up to scratch him gently under his mane. He butted his head gently against her while she reluctantly handed his reins to the groom who stood waiting to take him to the stables. She turned to watch them depart. Her heart ached a little that she would not be spending the next half an hour in the soothing rhythm of grooming and feeding, as she would have done arriving home at Edoras.

 _My home no longer._ Faramir's gentle touch on her elbow roused her. As he led her over to greet the king, she pondered on the change as bride from one allegiance to another. _May I still count myself of the Eorlingas or is that forever lost to me? And should I rue that loss when I have gained so much?_ While Aragorn welcomed them, she glanced between king and husband and wondered that she could have ever believed she felt for Lord Aragorn, admirable though he was, a tithe of what she felt for her husband now.

Soon the greetings were complete. They climbed the long lamp-lit slope to the Citadel. She and the queen went ahead, while her husband and the king followed behind: already holding conference about matters of state, it seemed. Éowyn was used to the business of government never being done, but she hoped they would not talk for too long tonight. She was aching from the long hours in the saddle and ready for food and bed. It seemed Aragorn was also conscious of the late hour, or eager to be alone in his wife's company again: as Arwen bade her goodnight and moved towards the King's House, Faramir came to lead her across the courtyard towards the Steward's home.

A single lantern hung above the door, swayed slightly in the breeze that was a constant presence so high up in the White City. Shadows gathered and flickered in the corners of the high, pillared portico. When the attentive porter swung open the carved panels and brighter light fell across white stone, Éowyn saw how the steps were worn by the passage of countless feet over many years.

She had viewed the house often from the outside the previous spring, yet she had never entered it. Faramir, laughing, had said it was not fitting until he had spoken to her brother and to his King. After he had done so, no more than a week had remained before she had left to help in setting Rohan to rights: a week filled with feasting and long hours of audiences at which Faramir's presence was required. When he was released from duty, he would come to her in the Houses of Healing and they would walk, or sit and talk, as the light faded.

Stepping forward, she looked upwards and glimpsed the soaring spaces of the hall, its domed skylight far above. Her husband's hand on her back gently guided her ahead of him as she faltered for a moment on the threshold. Lowering her gaze, she saw a rank of servants, liveried in black. They stood stiffly, quietly, their expressions polite or their eyes turned downwards: old men and women, or boys and girls scarce come into service. She thought of the cheerful, open-faced Eorlingas who served in Meduseld: a new mistress would be cause for shared glances and frank appraisal, even a familiar comment or two, perhaps.

While Faramir introduced her to the principals – his seneschal, the cook, the keeper of the wardrobe – she struggled against her weariness and tried to muster her warmest smile and find welcoming words for each of them. It seemed to her that Lothwen, the keeper of the wardrobe, could barely conceal a sneer as she ran her eyes over Éowyn's travelling garb. Thorondir, the seneschal, merely gave her a chilly stare. Only the cook, Eradan, seemed pleased. She supposed that he must welcome the chance to show his skills more widely now that there was a mistress again who would need to entertain.

As Thorondir made a shallow bow and presented her with the keys to the household, she tried to convince herself she might be mistaken in the resentment she felt radiating from him. While someone took her cloak, and another brought her a cup of warmed, spiced wine that she drank gratefully, she swept her gaze along the lines of the other servants. She wondered if their reserve masked equal dislike. _I did not expect this!_ she admitted to herself. Those who worked for the healers had been unfailingly kind to their charges; and to the pages she had encountered in the Citadel last year, she had been an honoured guest, sister of the King of Rohan.

Difficult servants were not unknown to her: permanently drunken carters; serving maids who brought the men to blows with their flirting, or who found themselves in worse trouble; a smith who had been heavy-handed with his apprentices. Yet all in Edoras had seemed willing to serve their king and his court; she did not remember any who had questioned that she had been placed in authority over them.

Perhaps she simply read too much into their demeanour and it was no more than the Gondorian way, the same difference she saw between her husband and her brother. She straightened her back a little and took a deep breath as she felt the cold weight of the keys in her hand. _These are my staff,_ she thought, as she and Faramir followed a footman into a small dining chamber panelled with dark wood and full of heavy furniture _. It is now my place to shape their manners to those they serve. Should I blame them for being fearful of change, or for wondering if a wild shieldmaiden of the North will prove a poor mistress and bring shame upon their household? I must show them I am willing learn their customs and do what is fitting in my new home._

Yet, as the footman pulled out one of the chairs whose elaborate carvings would prove to dig into her painfully when she tried to lean back, she made one decision that brought a brief smile to her lips. Lothwen, at least, would have to accept that her mistress would not waste time being prinked out in full court fashion every day.

The meal itself brought further and not entirely welcome revelations. It seemed that, even when the hour was late and master and mistress were tired, there were to be many courses, and fare that required more effort to eat than the sustenance it provided. _Eradan wishes to show me skills and welcome us home in his finest fashion_ , she reminded herself, remembering the warmth of the cook's greeting as she battled to part the flesh from the bones of some small game bird. Faramir appeared equally at a loss with the food: when she had time to spare from her own troubles, she caught a brief frown crossing his face as he wielded his knife.

They spoke little as they ate, exchanging only commonplaces about the food. As, with relief, she dipped her spoon into a dish of almond-flavoured custard, she at last had a chance to spare some thought for their gloomy mood. _Do we have nothing to say to each other when not in company?_ she wondered. Looking across the table at Faramir, she observed how his face was blank, his thoughts apparently turned inwards. Her heart misgave her for a moment. They were no longer travelling in festival mood, but in their own home at last. _Should we not be excited, happy, laughing? Will this be the way of our married life? Nay, surely it will not be so. We have not been so silent ere this when alone. He is as weary as I am, I think; surely 'tis nothing more._

When fresh fruit and cheeses were brought, she roused herself and reached for one of last year's wrinkled apples. "Will you show me the house tomorrow?" she asked, smoothing the dried leaf that still hung from the stalk. She watched Faramir pick up the small paring knife that lay by his plate, stare at it for a moment, and then put it down again with a slight clatter before he bit into the fruit he had taken. "Or must you work?"

Faramir glanced up. After a moment he gave her a small smile, but it seemed as forced as her own enthusiasm. "I will show you the house. The King was most insistent I should spend no more than an hour on the morrow on official business." He gave a small shrug. "You must decide how you wish it furnished and which staff to keep. I confess I have done little this past year, save lend some servants to the King's House."

"You have had a city and a country to set in order also." The leaf crumbled into small flakes under her fingers and she put the apple down, uneaten. She looked around at the forbidding furniture and cast her mind back to the unpromising staff. Maybe both would improve on better acquaintance. She wondered also that, despite the distractions of state, he seemed so indifferent to his surroundings. _Do you truly care not if I were to empty the house and furnish it anew? Are there none here whom you feel have served you well and would be loath to see sent elsewhere? What kind of home is this? What kind of homecoming, my love?_

Before she could pursue the idea further, Faramir's voice broke into her thoughts, answering her remark about city and country. "And I will show you those also." She looked back at him and saw that his face had lightened. His smile now seemed less strained. "Although not all of it tomorrow." He put down the rest of his apple and held out a hand to her. "Come. 'Tis late. Let us go up to bed."

The porter stared out from his cubbyhole as they crossed the hall. The many lamps reflected off the polished ironwork of the curving banister. A page, a lad of perhaps fifteen, stood stiffly at the top of the stairs, ready to run whatever errands his lord desired. Éowyn saw that he snatched several quick, embarrassed glances at them as they climbed the steps towards him. She was glad to discover that he still had some natural curiosity not crushed beneath the layers of formality, although this constant observation only made her long for the moment when she and her husband would be alone again. Faramir's hand was a warm promise against hers.

When they reached the head of the stairs, he led to her to a corridor to the right that gave access to the western side of the house. They had not gone more than a few steps when they were halted by a cry from the page.

"Lord Faramir." The boy's voice was filled with distress as he called out to them.

Faramir turned back towards him. "What is it, Hallas?" he asked. His voice betrayed none of the weariness Éowyn thought she detected in him. _Thus he must have spoken to the youngest of the Rangers_ , she thought. _Always kind, even to the most bothersome of his charges._

"Lord." The boy was standing on one leg, squirming awkwardly. "Lord," he stammered again, "there are no…." He caught Éowyn's eye and faltered. She turned away from him, hoping to ease his discomfort, looking instead towards her husband.

"It's all right, Hallas." Faramir spoke gently. "Take your time."

"They have made no rooms ready in the west wing, Lord. The state apartment…." The boy's voice trailed off again for a moment, before he continued more strongly, "We had no instruction and Master Thorondir said it was most fitting."

Éowyn saw no shadow cross Faramir's face – for, she reflected later, he must be accustomed to long years of receiving ill news with discipline – but she almost cried out herself as she felt his fingers tighten fiercely around her own. Her start drew his attention, and he relaxed his hold as he looked down at her, apology in his eyes. She shook her head to say it was of no importance: the sudden tears she held back were for his suffering – _why do the boy's words cause him such distress?_ – and not her own temporary pain. He squeezed her hand again, more gently, and turned back to Hallas.

"Yes, of course," he answered. His voice remained quiet, betraying nothing of the tension that she could now feel resonating through him like a released bowstring. "Thank you, Hallas." He led her on again, this time to the left, where she saw a door stood open to greet them.

They still went hand in hand, but the bond with him that she had felt as they climbed the stairs had been broken. He had shifted his grip, and it seemed to her that he now held her fingers lightly and carefully, so as to be sure he would not again make the mistake of betraying his feelings to her. She thought to hold him back, to turn his face to hers and question the grief she knew she would read in his eyes; before she could do so, they were through the door, and he was stepping away from her.

A great bed, hung with black curtains embroidered with the tree of Gondor, dominated the room. Black drapes stirred in front of tall windows that, she supposed, must give a view towards the river during the day. She saw little else before maids came forward and hurried her into a side room, to be relieved of her travelling clothes, sponged of the dust of the day and dressed in her nightgown.

Seeking the comfort of familiar things, Éowyn dismissed the two Gondorian maids, leaving only Brynna to attend her, as she had done on the journey from Edoras. While Brynna's competent hands undressed her, Éowyn looked around the small room. There was much to see besides the few possessions of her own – carried with them on their horses – that were spread around. Faramir had spoken truth when he had said they could safely leave their baggage train to make its slow way into the city a day or two later.

A large clothes press dominated one wall, its simple panelling contrasted with the two elaborately carved chests that flanked it. Shelves held smaller wooden chests and hampers made of withies, which she guessed must contain gloves, or shoes, or undergarments. Cloaks hung from hooks: the sight of a corner of blue stitched with silver stars warmed her with memories of a cold but joyous day. To one side of the room, Brynna was pouring water from a pitcher into a basin that was set into a cunningly wrought iron washstand.

Turning her head the other way as Brynna began to wipe away the grime of travelling, she cast her gaze over a table burdened with neat rows of glass vials, orderly ranks of small china pots, brushes for clothes as well as hair. _How could any one woman have need of so many things?_ she asked herself. In the centre of the table, her small travelling jewellery box had been set on top of a much larger one. The device inlaid into its lid in mother-of-pearl was half hidden, but she recognised it at once. It had been everywhere around her over the past few weeks as she travelled back to Gondor with her new family: the graceful curves of the wings of the swan of Dol Amroth.

She clenched her fists for a moment and swallowed hard as she grasped at last the reason for Faramir's unhappiness. "Brynna?" she asked quietly, using their own speech. "Did my husband's mother use this room once?" She suspected that, with her direct manners, Brynna would have not been shy in asking questions of the Gondorian maids, and would already know much about the ways of the place.

"Aye." The maid paused for a moment in her careful work with the damp cloth and gestured around the room. "They told me many of these things were hers."

"Yes, of course it would be so," Éowyn suppressed a shiver as she wondered if they had been brought out of storage for her use, or if they had remained in place for thirty years, untouched save for the careful tending of the servants.

Brynna smiled at her mistress. "But they have been busy in the still room for you. Lord Faramir must have told them of your tastes, for there is the heather honey lotion for your hands you told me you liked so much. It seems strange to me that a husband should notice such things, but I suppose nothing escapes the keen eyesight of a skilled Ranger–."

While Brynna dried her briskly with a warmed towel and talked on unheeded, Éowyn wondered what memories Faramir had of his mother, here in this room? What memories of his father, so much more recently departed? And would he wish her to preserve or sweep away those memories?

At length Brynna finished her ministrations, helping Éowyn into her nightclothes and brushing out her hair. When she emerged from the dressing room, Faramir was already stretched out in the gloom inside the black hangings. He lay on his back, his hands behind his head, staring up into the darkness under the canopy. He did not stir or turn to her in welcome as she approached. Climbing in beside him, she paused a moment, trying to read his face. His mouth was set in a hard line and his eyes were fixed and unseeing. She feared to make his grief greater, but she could not leave him to suffer alone. She slid herself under the covers beside him and pressed herself against him, willing him comfort; he finally seemed aware of her presence, and put out an arm to draw her closer.

She leant her head against his shoulder and rested her hand lightly over his heart: the heart that she had thought was hers and whole and healed, but it seemed not. She traced a pattern with her fingertips, trying to soothe his knotted muscles. His arm tightened around her, but when he made no other response, she tipped her head back to look at him.

"Faramir?" she began tentatively.

He turned his face down towards her and she saw his expression soften a little. "'Tis late, love. Let us sleep." He stroked the hair back off her cheek and dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead, then put his other arm around her and pulled her close, forestalling further questions.

They lay pressed together, tense and silent, for long minutes, while she wondered what she should do. A month and more had passed since their wedding night, but still she was struggling to make sense of the rules of this private place, what he wished from her and what would not be welcome.

While she had been ready enough return his embraces when they had retired at night on the journey back to the White City, never had she been the one to take the lead. Sometimes, tired with the exertions of the day’s travel, they had simply settled against another, at peace in each other’s arms. On other nights, he had reached for her with his hunger evident. The ease she had felt with him when he did not make love to her had, in its own way, brought her as much delight as the passion they shared on those nights when they had conducted their slow explorations of mutual pleasure. Yet there were times she had wished for more, but been too shy to demand what he did not offer, uncertain as to what he might expect.

Now he set her a new puzzle: she sensed a need in him for something, but perhaps no more than to hold her close. He might not welcome her troubling him with either questions or the necessity of declining a well-intentioned gesture. Even as she debated what course she should take, weariness overcame her, and she slipped into dream-filled sleep. When Faramir slept, she did not know; waking the next morning, she found herself alone in the great bed.


	2. Chapter Two

For a few seconds, she was unsure where she was. It was not just the strange bed. In the last month she had grown accustomed to waking next to her husband. On many mornings, she had been drawn from sleep by Faramir's gentle caresses; sometimes she had been the one to watch him dream, his night-face strange to her. When the other stirred at last, lips would seek lips, and hands entwine. Endearments, spoken and unspoken, would be exchanged.

Her eyes focused on the dent his head had left in the pillow. _Where is he?_ she wondered. _Have I slept so late that he must rise without me? Yet why did he not wake me ere he left?_ Doubt caught at her. _Was I mistaken in not speaking to him last night? Does he think I care naught for his pain? Is he angry? Is he grieved?_ The possibilities rushed through her mind in a wild jumble like the foaming waters of the Snowbourn. _My love, I would not have caused you greater hurt. Let me speak with you…._

She sat up abruptly and looked around. The room was as empty as she had expected it to be.

There was, nonetheless, much to distract her from her concerns. The curtains had been drawn and she caught her breath at the view. The early morning light slanted across a green and brown patchwork of fields. Hurrying clouds cast shadows that drifted over farm and barn, byre and copse. There were few signs from here of the devastation that had been so apparent from the walls just a year ago. Her eye caught the still ragged tops of the Causeway Forts in the far distance; she tracked the road from the river back towards her, searching for a grassy mound. Yet such things were less clear than the passing of traffic on the road, the bright shoots of corn that gave a faint viridian shimmer to the earth, the cries of sellers in a market somewhere in one of the circles below.

Memories came to her. Théoden, glorious as Béma, while the darkness rolled back. The burst of renewed hope at Merry's cry. A flash of triumph, tempered with pain, as she dealt her deadly blow. Such loss and despair, driving her to that place. Such peace when her eyes were opened to the love that drew her back at last from under the shadow. Love from and for one for whom, she realised, this view must bring more pain than pleasure. What memories did Faramir have of those days? Naught, she guessed, but the long, dark retreat under stooping shadows, while he feared for his father's mood. _What must you have thought, my love, waking and seeing this? Where are you now? I would draw your grief from you, as you once drew mine._

She turned away to survey the rest of the room for clues. Many chests and cabinets of the dark wood that seemed so pervasive in this house stood against walls hung with faded tapestries: the figures could barely be made out even where the sun fell full on them. Stiff-backed chairs held themselves to attention at either side of a small round table. The posts of the bed were shaped like tree bark tightly wrapped around by climbing vines, and their branches spread out across her head to hold the black canopy. Everywhere she looked, she saw the tree of Gondor: carved into the panels of furniture; embroidered into the hangings; reaching out its arms across the headboard behind her.

The rustle of cloth, the chink of metal on metal, and the squeak of a leather heel came from the direction of Faramir's dressing area. A moment later, he emerged, smoothing a fold of his tunic. She saw the tightness in his face that still marred his expression, even as he smiled across the room at her. She held out her hand to him, longing to take him in her arms and banish the unhappiness she perceived in him. Yet, to her dismay, he perched on the edge of the bed and pressed her fingers to his lips for no more than a moment before letting their hands fall apart.

"I hope you slept well," he said, his gaze sliding away from hers. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes. She wondered if he had slept at all, and what thoughts had occupied him during the long watches of the night.

"Well enough," she answered. Her voice was thin and she swallowed to rid herself of the lump that had risen in her throat. She laid a hand on his arm, trying to draw him from his distant air. "My love," she began. She paused, unsure which question to ask him first, or how to speak of his pain without sounding as if she were accusing him of neglecting her.

It seemed he did not wish her to speak at all. He took advantage of her indecision to give her a pale, cold smile that, she saw, did not reach his eyes. He covered her fingers with his for a second, before gently returning her hand to her lap. "I am glad to hear it," he said. "Do not hurry yourself to dress. I have papers to look over. An hour spent on them before we breakfast will give us leave to spend the remainder of the day together."

His tone was quiet and matter of fact, yet his manner did not indicate he felt any delight at the prospect of her company, or, indeed, at the prospect of anything. She nodded, now unable to speak at all, as pity and fear for him made a knot in her chest, though she wished with all her heart to cry out to him. Before she could recover enough to act again, he had risen and left the room, pausing only to call her women to attend her.

She scarcely heard the maids' chatter as she let them dress her, accepting the garments they proffered without seeing them. Brynna's exclamations as to the colour or fineness of the cloth, and the Gondorian maid's replies – had she been told the girl's name? She must ask Brynna later – washed over her. Only dimly did she note the frown that creased Brynna's forehead as maid looked at mistress.

 _Why does he not wish for my help?_ Éowyn asked herself. _And why do I find it so hard to speak to him?_ Her mind ran back over their time together. Often his manner had been grave and thoughtful, it was true. When she had first known him, he had been restrained and careful, holding his own emotions in check. Yet always, she realised, she had known that he desired her; always, even before his feelings turned to love, he had given her his admiration and his gentle pity. Now it was as the lanterns that had lit her path from the shadow-lands had been blown out.

 _We are amongst his people and far from mine; he has made the necessary alliance between our realms; does he no longer need to pretend to love me in order to secure me?_

 _No!_ Her spirit cried out against such falsehoods. If it had been no more than a political match, could he have feigned those looks? Would he have made their wedding night so sweet a memory if he had not truly cared for her? Did she not know all too well herself how to use coldness to guard against pain, and how to hold in check feelings that she had thought would trouble others?

 _Yet what need does he have to hide his grief from me? Did I vow only to share in his pleasure and not his pain? Does he fear that I will not love him?_

 _Oh, that I had spoken last night!_

When she was robed at last, a footman brought her a tisane to sip while the Gondorian maid dressed her hair in an elaborate style that was a far cry from the simple braids she had worn on the journey. Powder and paints were offered. Someone had taken care when purchasing them to choose colours that would flatter her fair hair and grey eyes, but she refused them so early in the morning; she knew there would be occasions enough when she must suffer them without adding them to her daily routine. Even so, when the maid turned her to face the mirror, she scarcely recognised the fashionable lady who looked back at her. She saw that she was as unsmiling as Faramir had been. _Shall we always be so, when we must be Steward and Lady of Gondor, strange to each other and ourselves?_ she wondered sadly. She tried to ignore the pain under her ribs that made it hard to breathe.

Attempting to shake her bleak mood and determined to bridge the divide between them, she followed the footman down to the room where they had eaten the night before. Faramir again sat at the foot of the long table, this time with papers piled around him in neat stacks. Thorondir hovered discreetly in a corner, and Hallas waited patiently by a door that must lead to the household offices. A place had been laid for her on Faramir's right hand. She was glad that they would have no need to raise their voices to speak to each other. As she moved towards Faramir, she wondered why he sat where he did and not in the great carved chair at the head of the table. Was it always so? Did he choose this place? And was his reluctance to take his rightful place another strange aspect of his behaviour here in his own home that she must unravel?

Reaching him she put a hand on his shoulder and bent to kiss him. He looked up, seeming startled by her presence. He let her touch her lips to his for a moment, but he drew back quickly. He bent his head and frowned once more at the document he held.

The taste of him and the brief touch had been like a few brief drops of rain falling onto parched grasslands after a hot dry summer, when the drought is not yet ready to break. It only made her long for more, and again wonder why he sought no comfort from her. He was a private man, yet since their marriage he had not been slow in front of others in offering her those small caresses she had so quickly and casually learnt to take as the commonplace fare of their love. She put a hand on the table for a moment to steady herself, dizzy with a rush of despair and anger that she still did not understand this new mood of his. Through her haze, she heard him ask Hallas to bring in the food.

He looked up at her again, seeming surprised she was still standing there. "Sit, love," he said. "I will only be a moment more."

She groped for her seat. The servants brought bread and cheese, breakfast ale, and a pot of warm spiced porridge from which Hallas, with visible caution lest he spill any, served her a small bowlful. Even distracted as she was by watching Faramir continuing to turn the pages of the document he was reading, she marked the footman's evident nervousness. It endeared him to her and she made a mental note to compliment him when she spoke to the servants, and to ensure he received more thorough training in the art of serving at table.

She looked back at Faramir. She herself knew how to stock a larder and supervise the cooks; keep accounts and order the spring planting; select heifers for breeding and ewes for market; have linen bleached white and wool dyed so it would not fade; offer the welcome cup and bid farewell to honoured guests once they had feasted. Yet it seemed her education had been deficient in one respect: no one had taught her how to handle a husband.

Still, Faramir was true to his word, reaching the end of the document by the time the food was ready. He signed it with a flourish, carefully shook sand over the signature, and placed it on one of the piles. At his instruction, Thorondir came forward to take some of the stacks pf papers away to the Steward's office in the White Tower, and to return others to Faramir's study here in the house.

"There," Faramir said, smiling at her – yet, again, the smile did not quite reach his eyes – as he accepted his bowl of porridge from Hallas. "Now the rest of the day is ours."

"Do you often work before breakfast?" Éowyn asked, as she dipped her spoon into her porridge and blew on it to cool it. There had been a few messengers from the King that had met them on their journey back from Edoras with business that would not wait for the Steward's return, but the size of the pile of unread documents sent back to his study made her heart sink. She had been under no illusion: Faramir would have many duties and cares that would fill his days. Yet she had hoped that these treasured early morning hours could be guarded against incursion by all but domestic matters. She wondered if her disappointment was evident in her voice – and if it should be.

"I suppose I do," Faramir answered. He seemed a little taken aback by the question, and she knew her hurt must have showed. "Forgive me, my love." He reached out and stroked her other hand where it lay on the table. She captured his fingers, trying to re-establish the connection between them with a gentle squeeze, even as he once more avoided meeting her eyes for more than a moment. "I fear I have developed bad habits, having not had much company at breakfast this past year." He turned his head towards the great carved chair at the other end of the table. Abruptly he withdrew his hand, picked up his spoon and dug it into his porridge. "You shall have to cure me of them."

Éowyn gazed down at her own bowl and bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. _Oh, my love, I will – if you will let me!_ She glanced back up at Faramir, and noted the dark expression that had settled across his face, before she took another look at the empty chair. _Your father's? Your brother's? Poor company indeed! How have you spent this twelvemonth: mired in your work, and then returning alone to this empty house filled with memories? I too grieved this past year, for my uncle and my cousin, whom I loved like a father and a brother. Yet have I not set that behind me, as I should, so that we can make this new life together?_

She looked again at Faramir as she spooned up the porridge, and her irritation with him turned to pity as she compared her losses to his. _Nay, but their ends were glorious, a matter for song; they were not the subject of whispers among courtiers and servants alike as to the manner of evil they fell into ere their deaths. And I had Éomer with me, to talk over the past and plan for the future. Did not your friends or your cousins help you through your grief? Or did you not let them? Did you put on that stern and forbidding look and they dared not speak?_

 _Yet I am your wife. I must not be silent._

Looking up, she caught Hallas staring at her. He blushed and dropped his gaze. Her resolve to broach the subject with Faramir faltered as she considered how her challenge to his silence would seem to the servants. She did not wish to give them cause for gossip that master and mistress were at odds so quickly. She cast about for a subject they could both to speak on easily, yet she could think of little but his pain and her own failure to relieve it. Apparently lost in his thoughts, he did not appear to feel the same discomfort she did as the silence lengthened between them. She framed question after question and discarded each: too frivolous, too harsh, too abrupt. It had not been so hard to find the right words in the gardens of the Houses of Healing, as their love grew between them unnoticed. Yet then grief and fear had been near for both of them.

At last, as she pushed her empty bowl away and reached for some bread, she found a question that seemed to carry no danger. With forced lightness, she said, "Perhaps you can show me the City this afternoon. I would see the fashion they build in here, and learn where I may find the best craftsmen."

"You already have plans?" She was glad to see a glint of amusement in his eyes again, even if, she sensed, it cost him some effort to speak.

She returned his smile. "No. I shall decide nothing quickly. Nor without consulting you." _For we must talk: always and of all things! Do you not see that?_ "But I would leave at least some directions before we depart for Ithilien, and know which workers I should call upon to furnish our home there. I am sure there will be much to do."

"Yes." He had moved his empty bowl aside and pulled his cup of breakfast ale towards him. She saw how his fingers restlessly traced over the dips and hollows of the pattern etched into the vessel's surface. "The house was finished well enough when last I saw it that I do not think it will be too much hardship to ask you to stay there, but it is poorly furnished. I have taken some items from here that may be of use, and I commissioned some pieces from the makers in _Rath Tewerdain_. They were to be ready by the time we returned." His smile was replaced by a slight frown. "I hope they will be to your taste."

"I am sure it will be so," she answered. She could not help stealing a glance at the dark furniture around her. She hoped that Faramir's news that he had already removed some to Emyn Arnen, and was indifferent to the fate of what remained, indicated that what she saw was not to his taste either. Looking at him again, she realised that he had withdrawn from her once more, his attention focused on the unceasing movements of his own hands over the cup. Even so, she drew comfort from the renewed proofs of his affection, however slight, that he had given her. She was determined not to let him lapse back into silence.

Putting down her bread, half eaten, she asked, "Is it Thorondir I should speak to of what monies I may spend?"

"Here, yes," he nodded. "I have a steward in Ithilien who oversees our affairs there, although the household is still small at present and I fear you will need to find more servants in Emyn Arnen also." He looked up at her, a slight frown once more creasing his brow. "I am sorry you do not find us in better shape to welcome you."

This time, she was the one to reach out, clasping his wrist. "I am used to disorder. The household in Meduseld was in much disarray when I returned. Perhaps we can do as I did there, and employ those whom war has made unfit for labour in the fields, but who may still serve?"

He let go of the cup and took her hand in both of his. The frown cleared from his face. "That is a good thought." His voice was rich with approval, and her heart leapt that she had pleased him with her suggestion. "We shall make it so. I will tell Thorondir to give you whatever you ask for."

"You shall not!" she cried, laughing now and placing her other hand over his and giving them a shake. "The Steward of Gondor who works such wonders over this past year as I have already seen on the Pelennor and in the White City would not – _should_ not – allow his wife to spend so carelessly. There will be a limit; and if it is a small one, I shall not mind. I hope I shall manage your household as carefully as you manage your land." She paused before adding softly, almost to herself, "Our land."

He was laughing too. "If you manage our household half as well as you managed your brother's, I will be content. Especially as there are no hungry Halflings here to disrupt your plans."

A warm glow spread through her at the thought that she could still find ways to touch his heart and lighten his bleak moods, and that they had already built good memories to hold to in hard times. Yet she was not foolish enough to believe all was mended between them, or that it would not be a difficult task to draw the sting of his grief from him permanently. For some things, there was little comfort to be given, and he must choose too accept what she offered. _But we have made a beginning_ , she thought with hope.

"Perhaps from time to time you will have to invite one or two to visit, to ensure I do not become complacent," she answered, gently tightening her fingers for a moment over his. "Come, if you have finished breakfast, show me our house."

He nodded and drew her to her feet. Still hand in hand, he led her back into the hall. As he opened one half of a set of double doors along from the one they had just passed through, he said, "You have seen the private dining chamber, where we will eat and where we may entertain a few close friends. This," he gestured through the door, "is the Great Hall. Here, we will hold dinners and dances for visiting lords and ambassadors. Dull and dreary, I fear." His voice had taken on an anxious note. "In Gondor, state banquets are not so merry as your feasts in Edoras, and too much business is talked at them."

Her footsteps echoed in the high-ceilinged hall as she let go of his hand and took a few paces into the room to look around. The polished wood floor seemed to stretch out as far as the plains of Rohan. Tall windows with leaded panes showed the same view across the Pelennor that she had seen from their bedchamber, and two large wooden doors led out onto a terrace where, she could see through the nearest window, a few shrubs and flowers grew in tubs. To one side of the room, a vast fireplace yawned, the grate empty under an elaborately carved marble frieze of flowers and fruit. She supposed trestles and benches must be brought from somewhere when they dined, but the room was presently empty. It was also cold, despite the early morning sun that fell through the windows and made the floor gleam. She shivered and turned back to Faramir.

"It is something like Meduseld, and yet very different. I see I shall have to learn to entertain in the Gondorian style." She tried to keep her voice from trembling at the thought that she must be mistress of this place. The customs of the Riddermark were well known to her and held no fears, but the meal the previous evening – and her memories of the celebrations following the coronation the previous year – made her fear that she did not know well enough what would be expected of the wife of the Steward, and that she would make mistakes that would shame him.

It seemed that Faramir read her mood, for he laughed gently and said, "I shall ask Lothíriel to help you. She has presided over many festivities in Dol Amroth. And if we do not always do things after the manner of the last thousand years, well: this is a kingdom renewed. The king has made many changes and we should follow the fashion."

Éowyn wondered briefly if her husband would speak so lightly after she had managed to offend an ambassador or snub one of the nobles whose good opinion he required in council. Then she chided herself for doubting him. _Have I not seen how he speaks to those who serve him? He will not blame me for an honest mistake. But I should be sure I do my best not to commit any foolish ones. I will learn what I may from Lothíriel. She will understand my need, better than any perhaps._

She stepped back towards Faramir. "And in return I will teach Lothíriel the customs of Rohan, which she also will need to know," she answered, her tone serious.

"That is well." Faramir nodded. "Also, I would also not have our sons and daughters ignorant of half their heritage." He took her hand and stroked his thumb across the intertwined bands of the double wedding ring she wore. His voice was low and thoughtful as he added, "Perhaps we may forge new customs: if not here, then in Ithilien, where there is no fashion save the rude courtesy of the Rangers."

"I am sure your courtesy was never rude," Éowyn laughed. "Come, what else is there for me to see."

Out in the hallway, he gestured towards a doorway set under the curve of the stairs. "The household offices are through there. I should let Thorondir show you those. I have rarely been in the kitchens and storerooms since I was a child, and would scarce know where to begin."

He quickly led her on to show her another room on the other side of the hall. There were many deep seats and a large table under the windows. The walls were painted with murals or hung with tapestries. "This is the steward's council room," Faramir told her, "although I do not remember when it was last used. My father…."

His hesitation made her turn from admiring a tapestry that seemed to show Cirion granting Rohan to Eorl; she had been about to share her amusement that woven steward and king bore more than a passing resemblance to their living counterparts. Looking up at the clearer and better-known features beside her, she saw a thoughtful look settle on his face. _What memories, now, love?_

Before she could question him, he seemed to pull himself back to the present, and went on, "My father always spoke to the lords and captains in the White Tower. I have not had occasion to hold conference without the king with more than two or three others together, and my office was sufficient to accommodate them. Perhaps we can find another use for the room?"

“Maybe so,” she answered, wondering why the right words to question him, and to allow her to penetrate beyond that maddeningly calm and controlled surface, seemed to elude her this morning. “I must see what else this house holds.”

"Yes, there is still much to see," he answered, steering her back into the hall. Again, she heard that melancholy tone that seemed to lack all enthusiasm, though he clearly tried hard to disguise it and speak evenly. She was torn between hope and doubt. _Do others see this emptiness in you or is it only I who reads it?_ she wondered. _You are fair spoken still, so perhaps they do not. And your swordplay is admirable: you parry every thrust I make; and each time I press forwards, you retreat or disengage. I would not have you quit the field entirely if I make too bold a stroke. Yet why do you defend so hard against me? Do you fear I will re-open old wounds? It seems to me they are not full healed and need perhaps to be lanced._

As they climbed the stairs to the next floor, she mustered her courage and tried another line of attack "Is there truly nothing you would keep of the furnishings?" she asked. "You would not mind if I left naught here? This was your home ere it was ours and surely there are memories you cherish."

"I do not need such things to aid my memory of the past," he answered with flat finality. She almost missed a step in her shock at the anger and bitterness his tone contained. _Were there no happy times here you would recall?_ Her mind rebelled at the notion. _Surely it cannot be that all your memories are evil. I know you loved your father and brother; I have heard it in your voice and seen it in your eyes when you speak of them. There must have been some moments of pride, in their achievements or yours, or loving words or gestures between you that you would think on again._

Their examination of the next room, the solar, passed in a blur for her as she struggled to regain her composure. She was aware of many chairs and small tables clustered in groups around the room, or gathered before another grand fireplace, waiting for intimate conversations or card games. Faramir was telling her how the ladies of Gondor met in the afternoons to drink tea and exchange gossip; that she would no doubt be expected to attend and host such parties. She looked up at him as they stood side by side in the doorway. His face and words were brisk and business-like.

 _How could you conceal this hurt from me? Has this been hiding in your heart all the time you turned a merry face to me as we rode or talked together, or showed me a loving one as we lay side by side? Why did you hide these thoughts? And oh,_ her breath felt stopped, and for a moment she pressed her hands to her stomach, so strong was the pain, _why did I not see myself that it was so with you?_

By the time he led her to the next room, the shock had subsided a little. "This was my mother's private sitting room," he explained, as he ushered her inside. He sounded a little anxious as he added, "I hope you will make it yours."

This was the first room that truly showed signs of comfort and occupation. Books were piled on a side-table beside a cushioned high-backed chair drawn close to the fire. Another chair faced it companionably. Window seats afforded a view across the square outside through large lead-paned casements. The muted blues of the curtains were echoed in the pale tones of a slightly threadbare but magnificent carpet spread across the polished floorboards.

Although the sun had not yet reached round far enough to shine in directly, the room was filled with light. It reflected with a soft glow off plastered walls that were decorated with delicate patterns of flowering vines. They twined their trumpeted blue sprays around cunningly painted panels, in each of which hung a carefully worked sampler. Over the fire, a collection of miniature portraits had been placed. An oil lamp stood at one end of the mantelpiece, balanced at the other end by a graceful statuette of a swan arching its wings as it prepared for flight. Someone had placed a vase of tall sprays of white and purple lilacs on a larger table, next to a workbox and a decanter and glasses. The sweet scent of the lilacs wafting through the room soothed her spirit.

"It is charming," she said. She turned and smiled at him, glad to give him this reassurance. "I should be delighted to make use of it."

He seemed pleased at that, although there was a slight hesitation as he nodded his head and ceded the room to her. Before she could question the reason for it, he crossed the room and opened a second door. "This will be my study," he said. "We may work side by side when I am not in my office in the Tower."

She joined him in the doorway to look and let out a small gasp. "I did not know you gave all your books to Rohan as my bride-price," she said. Empty bookcases towered around the room, and she heard her voice echo off their bare shelves.

"I did not." Again, that faint bitter edge to his voice that few others might have detected amidst the general civility of his tone. He gestured back towards the sitting room and she saw a cabinet that held a few dozen volumes. "Those are _my_ books. It was my father's collection I gifted to Rohan."

Looking back across the sitting room from this different angle, she noticed a small writing desk burdened with pens and inkwells, a seal and sealing wax, a shaker for sand, and other evidence that someone had been hard at work there. Turning back to the study, she saw that the great desk there was piled so high with papers it would have been impossible to work there. Anyone sitting in the chair could not have reached past the stacks of documents to make use of the grand triple inkwell, whose brass lids gleamed in the firelight. She understood now that moment of reluctance to turn the sitting room over to her use, although she still wondered just why he was so hesitant to claim this room once he had cleared away his father's books.

 _Enough!_ she thought. She took a few steps into the study and turned to face him. She held out her hands to him and he allowed himself to be drawn towards her, although he still avoided her gaze. For a moment she simply examined him, caught between frustration and pity. Then she took his face in her hands and made him look at her.

"Have we not always spoken plainly to one another?" she asked him.

"I hope so." He sounded wary and defensive.

"Then speak plainly now!" she cried, giving his head a small shake. "I see that you are troubled, and I can guess many reasons why that is so, but if you will not speak of them to me, then I can do nothing to aid you." She gentled her touch and lifted her right hand to brush the hair back from his temple. "Am I not your wife, your helpmeet?" she pleaded. "Did I not swear by the customs of your people to nurture and protect you? Then do not turn away from me when I seek to ease your burdens!"

For a long moment his grey gaze was hard and wintry, and she feared she had angered him, that she had indeed pressed too much. Then he blinked and she saw his eyes grow bright with sudden tears. With a deep sigh, he gathered her to him and held her close. "My love, forgive me," she heard him murmur into her hair. She felt him drop a gentle kiss on the crown of her head.

For some minutes, she allowed him to take silent comfort from her, while she drew solace from him. At last, she stepped away and looked up at him. "Now, speak and be not silent!" she commanded, with a gentle laugh.


	3. Chapter Three

Faramir let go of her hands and walked past her, moving further into the study. She watched him prowl around silently for several minutes. He stopped from time to time to look at or touch the contents that remained. At first she assumed he was ordering his thoughts, but after a while she began to wonder if he would again sidestep her questions. She was about to prompt him once more when he began to speak.

"I loved those books," he said. There was affection in his tone, even amusement, as he recalled his younger self. Although he was turned away from her, facing one of the bookcases, and his voice was low, the words came clearly to her. "Too much, perhaps. I would steal in here when my father was busy elsewhere, and sneak one into the other room to read when I was supposed to be studying my lessons."

Éowyn held herself unmoving, not wishing to distract him now that he had begun to open his heart to her, wondering where it would take them both.

"One day," he went on, "he caught me. I was twelve, I think, or perhaps thirteen, and still foolish and unwary, apt to lose myself in my thoughts and pay too little heed to my surroundings. I had been trying to decide which of two volumes I wished most to read, and I sat down so that I could look at them." He moved to face the reading couch that stood before the fire. The light gleamed off the deep curves of the heavy scrollwork, but revealed the worn patches in the upholstery "Well, I suppose I decided which one I wished to read after all, for the next thing I knew it was dusk and he was standing over me."

Faramir laughed quietly, and shook his head. "He did not say much, but I knew he was very angry. He held out his hands for the books." Apparently reliving the moment, Faramir held out his own hands as if offering them. "Then he made me go into the next room and show him what I had done of the studies assigned to me that day. Which was, of course, little." Éowyn saw a wry smile lift the corner of his mouth and was gladdened that his gentle humour, more often turned against his own foibles than those of others, seemed still intact. "He made me finish what I was supposed to be doing before I was allowed supper, while he sat in the chair by the fire and looked at the books I had been reading. It occurred to me after a while that he would not be eating supper either until I finished. I am not sure that improved either my penmanship or my ability to think."

He turned to look past her and through the door into the other room for a moment, before he shifted his gaze to catch hers. She smiled at him, willing him to go on. "Since I did not wish to cause my father further pain by failing in my duties again, I stayed out of here and applied myself diligently only to the studies that my tutors set me. Then, several weeks later, a book appeared on the table in there." He nodded his head towards the sitting room. "I asked the servants and they knew naught of it – or so they said. Thorondir may have had some knowledge, I think, though he claimed not. After a week, the book was taken away, and another put in its place. One book, and one book only, once a week, for all the rest of my youth."

His voice carried a hint of wonder, of disbelief, perhaps that his father would have done such a thing, or that he could have questioned it so little for so long. _Oh, love_ , she thought, _I understand all too well how fear or duty, or even love that does not wish to press unwanted feelings on another, could keep you silent! And how we may grow to regret such things. We shall not be so, I promise you._

He shrugged his shoulders. "If I had not finished reading something, I learnt to take it to my own chamber. There would be no new book until the first was returned, but when I put it back on the table in here, there would be another in its place at the end of the week." Again he gave a half-smile. "Mostly they were for my improvement, you might say: histories or political works, about Gondor, or our allies, or our enemies. But every now and then there would be lighter fare: a little natural history or poetry, perhaps."

He turned himself around slowly, surveying the emptied shelves. "I thought the practice would end when I joined the Rangers, for I would have little time for reading aught but dispatches, and I would be away much. Yet there would always be another book waiting for me when I came home, often new works that must have been acquired while I was out of the City."

He turned back to face her and now she saw open amazement. "And every time I went on duty, I would find somewhere in my pack – I do not know how he managed it! – a small book wrapped in oiled cloth. I thought these were loans also, but when I placed them back here, they were not removed. Gifts. For twenty years and more." He shook his head and laughed softly. "And we never spoke of it, save that once or twice when I quoted something I had read in one of those books, I would see the shadow of a smile cross his face."

He pressed his lips together and turned his head away. She saw him blink rapidly several times and realised he was trying to hold back tears. She took a pace towards him, ready to speak, to offer him what comfort she could, but halted when he spoke again, his voice once more low, and now less steady.

"We never spoke of it," he repeated. "And now we never can. I can never give him the thanks I owe, or let him know that I knew of his love and returned it."

She pressed her hands to her mouth for a moment to silence the cry that would have burst from her. How it must pain one so eloquent – in words and looks – to believe he had not been able to share such feelings. Yet could his father have been in any doubt? She remembered how, even when he had still to speak of it and when her own heart had been turned elsewhere, his love for her had shone clearly in every gesture. _Aye, but have I not had ample proof this day that you may mask your thoughts when you will?_ She shook her head. _Nay, not from me nor any who know and love you well. And such you father must have been; your tale confirms it._

"He knew." She found her voice at last. She stepped close and put her arms around him, holding him tightly. He returned the embrace, and she felt the strength of his body, even as a sigh told her how fragile his spirit was in the face of his long grief. She pulled away a little so she could tip back her head and look at him. "He knew," she repeated.

"Perhaps," he said. She saw the doubt still in his eyes. "But there are other things I can never share with him now, though I wish with all my heart that I could do so. It grieves me that I will never introduce him to my beautiful and loving wife," he smiled down at her and smoothed a wisp of hair back from her forehead, "or that he will never know his grandchildren. We were not always easy together, but I wish he were here, even if only to be angry with me again."

Her heart twisted at his words. She too knew the regret – or the guilt – of words left unspoken until it was too late for them to be heard. At least she had had some chance with Théoden and Théodred to set matters in order before the end, though there were many things before and since their loss that she wished she could have shared with them. She, too, would have liked them to have known that she had made a marriage to a good and loving man, whom she loved, and put behind her the many sorrows of the latter years in Meduseld.

She wondered if Faramir had been so fortunate when his brother left on the journey from which he would not return. They would both have expected hazard enough, yet surely they would have counted it less than the dangers to be faced each time they departed for their separate duties in the borderlands. _And even when we are not at odds, too often we leave unsaid those things that we think the other knows: that we love them; our gratitude for acts of kindness, large and small; what it is we value in them. Did Boromir ride away confident that he would return for both of you to say such things? He seemed high-hearted when he left Edoras for the North, yet mayhap that was just his manner. Did he hide his doubts from public view, as you do? And did he hide them even from you at your leavetaking?_

Faramir cut across her musings, almost as if he read her thoughts. "And this house is filled with memories of him, memories of my brother too. I see now that I have lived this past year with these shadows all around me yet, for the most part, I have tried not to think on them. And I see also that I hoped that my joy in being wed," he pulled her close again and rested his cheek against the crown of her head, "would banish them completely. But to bring you here, to see you here where they once were, for us to sit or talk or walk or sleep where they once sat or talked or walked or slept…. It has served only to bring their shades before me again, more strongly than ever."

She tightened her arms around him for a moment, the only comfort she could think to offer. Then she frowned, as she considered all that he had said to her. "Yet you speak to me only of good memories," she pointed out gently. "I know that there are griefs between you and your father that cannot be mended, but can you not take comfort in the good?"

He shook his head. "I can take no joy in them." He spoke in little more than a whisper, as if ashamed to admit such foolishness. "For they remind me only that he is gone, that there will be no more memories. I hoped that if I gave his books away, I could give away the memories too, but it is not so. And he is everywhere, in everything, but most of all here." He tilted his head to indicate the room around them. "I cannot enter his study – nay, 'tis my study now, is it not? –," his laugh now had a bitter edge to it, "without thinking of him."

An idea came to her and, desperate to ease his pain, she spoke before she had time to consider it more deeply. "Then you shall have to learn to think differently," she said. The words came out more harshly than she meant as she struggled with the lump in her throat. Drawing back from him a little, she led him a few paces across the room to sit beside her on the couch. She looked at him, a moment of uncertainty creeping in. _Will I only make you more angry? More sad?_ Yet her heart ached to offer him comfort; her body ached that he was so near but still so distant.

She put her doubts aside, leant towards him and kissed him, capturing his top lip gently between hers. She could taste cinnamon from the sweet porridge they had eaten for breakfast lying over his own taste, the sustenance she truly sought. For a long second, he did not respond, and she feared she had misjudged. Then joy flooded through her as he returned the kiss.

Even so, he seemed reluctant, and soon tried to break the embrace, but she placed one hand behind his head and pulled his mouth back down on to hers, deepening the kiss. Groping for his hand with her free one, she twined her fingers in his, before she lifted their hands and pressed his palm gently against her breast. She felt him breathe a sigh of pleasure as his fingers curved around her. Encouraged, she slid her tongue forward to meet his, beginning the sweet dance that never failed to light the fire within her. While their lips and tongues spoke, her flesh hardened under the gentle strokes of his thumb. Dropping her own hand to his knee, she slid her palm little by little up his thigh.

His other hand was now on the small of her back, pressing her towards him, despite the awkwardness of their knees butting together. She was just wondering how to manoeuvre them so that they would be lying upon the couch – _You always seem to manage such things so effortlessly, my love!_ – when she heard the muffled thump of something being dropped outside in the hallway, followed by a curse from one of the servants.

To her dismay, Faramir pulled back from her abruptly. She caught his shoulder to prevent him from moving further off. His muscles were tense under her hand and he had to clear his throat before he could speak. His voice, when it came, was unsteady. "Éowyn, I would not refuse you, but I am not sure this is wise. The servants may come in at any time."

"Then we will have to ensure they do not." Her own voice was far from even as she tried to control the emotions that were careering around within her like a herd of startled colts. She was unnerved by the strength of her need to bring them both comfort in all the ways she could: mind and heart and body and soul. She longed to draw old pains from him with new pleasures, and give him sweet memories to lay over the bitter ones. _I was a maid indeed, for all that I had been bloodied in battle, when I pledged myself to you_ , she rebuked herself. _While our marriage would be naught without the respect and friendship that were all I offered then, little did I understand how the pleasures of our being together would strengthen our union. I do not think we would be unhappy without such bonds, but I think we would not know such contentment in each other if I did not return your love in equal measure in all ways._

She let go of his shoulder, lifted the bunch of keys from her girdle and held it out to him. "Which are the keys to these chambers?"

He raised his eyebrows in surprise but paused only a moment before he bent his head to the task of sorting through the keys that lay on her palm. The touch of his fingers against hers made her tremble, and she did not try to conceal it. When he slowed his movements, and let one calloused yet gentle fingertip caress the edge of her palm as he sought the key, she knew he felt it also. She marvelled that she had learnt to read so much in him in so short a time, and that she could excite such feelings in one who was otherwise so self-contained.

At last he presented her with two keys. She closed her fingers around his and leant forward to kiss him lightly, before she slid the keys from his hand. Turning away to the doors, she wondered about this new home she had come to, where doors could be locked and a husband could be troubled that his servants would know he took pleasure in his wife's company. Since childhood, she had from time to time overheard the sounds of a private moment between a man and a woman; none in Rohan would think long on it. Nor would they be much troubled if they stumbled on such a scene.

 _Not so here, it seems. Will the servants think me wild and unmannerly? Will they talk about us? Fail to do my bidding?_ she wondered. _And should I let them, or should I seek other servants who are not so cold-hearted, even if I must call them from Rohan? What did you say, my love? That a transplanted tree should grow according to the soil and clime in which it finds itself? Yet the tree must still grow according to its own nature! And you see me with all my faults and love me still. What should we care for what others think of us and our love? Too long have we both needed to hide our feelings; I will not let the cold customs of this court taint our happiness now that we have found it._

As she thought this, she locked first the door from the hall into the study and then the one in the sitting room, securing them from interruptions. Coming back into the study, she saw Faramir sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning forwards. His mouth was set in a serious line, but she perceived amusement dancing in his eyes. It seemed he did not dislike a forward wife after all.

She noted, as she crossed back over towards him, that he had pulled off his shoes and pushed them under the couch. One lay tipped on its side, while the fastenings of the other hung loose: hardly the precision she had come to expect from him. As she stopped before him, she pulled her own feet from the light slippers she wore and kicked them aside. She knelt between his knees, and he took her into his arms and pressed her to him.

They began again their slow exploration of each other. He shivered as she stroked the fingertips of one hand across the back of his neck. With the other hand, she traced the line of his leg, remembering how she had enjoyed the caresses he had given her. Her own desire for him built as his lips roved across her face and neck, returning over and over to her mouth for more deep and tender kisses. His hands slid from her hips, where he cupped her soft flesh to pull her to him, to circle her waist, before moving on upwards again to linger on her breasts. At last, he ran one palm slowly down her arm, over the tightly drawn material of her sleeves, to her wrist. The other hand he slid under the laces that shaped her surcoat and gently tugged.

And tugged again. To no avail. He drew back from her, glared at where his hand was tangled in the cords, and then lifted his gaze to her face. "I do not think I like the fashions of Gondor so much as those of Rohan," he said, pulling his hand free with an exaggerated flourish. He let out a gusty sigh as he ran a finger along the edge of her high-necked collar.

She laughed at his play-acting. "Did you not arrange to have these clothes made for me?" she reminded him.

"Aye." He acknowledged the fault with a smile. "And they suit you very well. But they do not suit a husband whose wife would seduce him."

"Then we shall have to discard them." Her tone was light, but she moved her hand further up his leg so that he would not doubt the offer she was making.

The bells for the change of the fourth hour could be heard ringing in the silence between them. He hesitated, as if uncertain that their game should go so far so early in the day. She was startled to realise that, though she had intended no more than a few kisses and caresses at the outset, she now wished to give him all the pleasure she could offer. She held herself unmoving, breathless, until he gave the faintest of nods.

With a surge of relief, she moved to pull at the ties that laced her surcoat, but he brushed her hand aside. "Let me," he said, bending his head to the task.

While his quick hands worked at the knots, she stroked back his dark hair where it fell forward across his face. She revelled in the crisp, clean feel of it under hands, and breathed in his sweet musky scent, that lay under the stronger odours of leather and clean cloth, as she dropped a kiss on his crown.

 

When the laces were freed, she helped him lift the surcoat over her head. She felt a sharp tug on the hair at the nape of her neck as the cloth caught on the elaborate coils that were piled high and held in place with pins. When the material at least came loose, a few pins came free with it, and a lock of hair uncurled and fell forwards across her face. Faramir stroked it away and kissed her where it had touched her cheek before he drew back. He ran his gaze over her, clearly estimating his next challenge.

A playful grin stole across his face as he reached out and unhooked the ribbon holding fast the topmost of the many small buttons that closed the front of her dress. Then he bent forwards and teased her lips for a moment with his own, She had just begun to savour the kiss and respond when he pulled away to tackle the next button. Once it was undone, he leaned back in again; this time he dropped a brief kiss on her temple before he retreated. Another button, and a feather-light caress on her cheek. Laughing, she turned her head and tried to capture his mouth with her own, but he eluded her. A fourth loop and he pressed his lips to the exposed hollow of her throat. His warm breath tickled her delicate skin and she gave a low moan as his fleeting touch ended.

So he went on, his all-too-brief kisses punctuating each move by his deft hands, while she tried unsuccessfully again and again to capture his mouth, or to hold him there when he brought his lips to hers from time to time. Yet she did not try too hard, nor lift her hands from where they rested lightly on his arms. The denial in this game was a part of its sweetness: she knew well that in his holding back and his delay he aimed to bring her more delight at the end.

While he worked, his hands brushed against her: sometimes they rested against her bare skin above the neckline of her shift; at others, his touch was still dulled by the heavy cloth. In time, enough kisses had been given and received for him to slide the dress back from her shoulders, but she shook her head in warning. For many minutes, there had been no sounds but their breath, and the whisper of cloth, and the quiet crackle of the fire. What need for words when her eyes surely said all that was needed of her delight and her desire? Her tongue had grown mute, except where he had let his touch hers for brief moments in their kissing game.

Now she held up her arm to show him the row of buttons that held the sleeve tight at her wrist. She saw his mouth curve in another wry smile before he leant forwards to kiss her once more. She expected the same game, but this time he did not draw back but deepened the kiss. She rejoiced in the lingering, slow exploration she had longed for, yet it did not satisfy her need but only roused it further. She was dimly aware, as she responded, that he was working deftly on the buttons of her sleeve by touch alone.

At length he drew back from the kiss, leaving her dizzy and breathless. He looked down at her bared forearm, where the cloth now fell away from it, and bent and kissed the tender flesh on the inside of her elbow, a spot she would have considered before that moment to be workaday, with no place in lovemaking. Now a flutter ran through her as he pressed his lips to it. _Is there anywhere you might touch me now that would not give me pleasure or increase my need?_ she wondered.

She stroked his hair back from his face and felt him tremble as she touched the warm skin below his ear. He lifted his head, took her hand and pressed her fingertips to his lips for a moment. Then he turned her arm so that he could work on the fastenings of the other sleeve. Afraid that – as at other times when he found her attentions too distracting – his composure might be undone by her touch, she held herself still.

This time, he parted the cloth away as each button was released and trailed those gentle, maddening kisses along the inside of her wrist and forearm, until he again reached the inside of her elbow. At last he returned to her mouth for another long kiss, while he pushed the heavy cloth back from her shoulders and slipped the sleeves down over her hands. When her arms were free, she wrapped them around his neck to pull him closer. He slowly slid his arms down her sides, lingering a moment on her long-neglected breasts, before he circled her waist to lift them both to their feet. The dress caught between them at first, before its weight carried it downwards to pool around her ankles.

She felt relieved of more than the heavy cloth, although she was too caught up in the pleasures of the moment to reason why. Thinking of it later, it seemed to her as if they had sloughed off the deadening hand of office and position also. She knew well the obligations of public duty – had she not once been rebuked by her new king for wishing to choose otherwise? – yet other duties had a claim and should not be denied. Land and people must be served, and served well, but they would not be served best if personal need were always sacrificed to public demand. Duty to family and to oneself must also be given their place, and perhaps it fell to her to teach Faramir their proper balance.

All such thoughts were driven from her mind at that moment as he went on kissing her with deep hungry kisses. She revelled in them, and returned them in equal measure, while she pressed herself to him. When she felt him gathering up her thin shift between his fingers, she broke the kiss to step back a pace and raise her arms. He slid the fine material over her head. A few more hairpins clattered to the floor, and another lock descended to brush her shoulder. She was keenly aware of the soft whisper of her own hair and the gentle touch of Faramir's fingers on the bare skin of her shoulders as, with a smile, he began to pull out more pins, apparently at random. She waited patiently while he ran his hands through the tangles, until it seemed he was satisfied he had found all the fastenings.

That task completed, he glanced downwards again. She saw his mouth quirk once more as he took in the details of yet another layer. _Aye, my love, still more cloth between you and your desire. I too prefer the simpler fashions of Rohan to the fine trappings of Gondor!_ Gently, he turned her to face away from him, and caught and lifted her hair to lay it over one shoulder. She felt his lips on the back of her neck, tasting fresh familiar territory, sending tremors of pleasure through her as he worked at the ties of her breastband. All she could do was reach backwards and stroke his hips, pressing herself against him. Her mouth felt dry with anticipation and she nervously moistened her lips with her tongue.

She felt the constricting material come free at last. The loose ends brushed her arms as he let them fall. His hands slid forward to push the cloth away to join the tangle of other garments at her feet, and she heard his deep sigh of satisfaction as he at last cupped her bare flesh. He pulled her close against him and began to drop kisses behind her ear. She covered his hands with her own and stood quietly as he caressed her, her skin tingling, the ache inside her now so acute it was almost beyond bearing.

After a while he slid his hands downwards and pulled at one end of the bow that held the ribbon gathering her drawers. For a moment she thought he would slip his hands inside, to where she longed for his touch, but he simply pushed the cloth down over her hips until it, too, fell to the floor. Then he turned her back to face him. She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck and pull his mouth once more down onto hers, while he stroked her newly bared skin.

She was beginning to think about how to relieve him of his clothes, and was sliding her hands down to his belt, when she found herself lifted in his arms. Though she was tall and well built, he seemed to make light of the burden as he swung round and laid her gently on the couch. She tried to twine her arms around his neck to hold him to her, but he pulled back and stood looking down at her for a moment, running his gaze slowly over her. His look, filled with intention and desire, made her shake. She stretched out, offering herself up to him.

Seeming pleased with his inspection, he straddled the end of the couch and pulled her towards him, drawing her legs around him so that he could bring her close and kiss her again. While her mouth was occupied with the taste and touch of him, she also felt the light brush of his tunic against her, the cold whisper of the metallic embroidery on his sleeves, the smooth velvet of the couch under her, his breath on her skin.

He shifted so that he could gently press her back onto the slope of the couch, the threadbare material cool against her back. He followed her down, trailing kisses across her neck and over her collarbone to where paler flesh swelled. As he teased first one pink peak and then the other with his tongue, she had a moment to wonder which of them gained more pleasure from it, before all rational thought seemed swept away.

When he was apparently satisfied with his work, he moved on, planting soft kisses on her stomach. He slid his hands from her knees along her thighs and gently parted her legs wider. She closed her eyes, waiting for the moment when he would reach the secret heart of her. Yet it was not the cool caress of his calloused fingertips she felt on her: the unexpected presence of something warm and wet sent a spike of pleasure like lightning through her.

Surprised, she stiffened and opened her eyes. Looking down, she saw her husband's dark head bent over her. Then he swirled his tongue again and she let out a gasp of delight as a new wave of sensation broke over her. A different kind of tension took hold. She tangled her hands in his hair as sometimes he flickered his tongue across her with feather-light touches, at others drew it in slow strokes and whorls; in between times she experienced a new sensation, more intense and wonderful than any other, as he tenderly suckled her. At each change, she fought against the reactions that threatened to overwhelm her, desiring to prolong this sweetness. At last she could no longer stem the rising tide. She cried out his name in a low voice as she rode the waves that swept over her.

He came up to kiss her lips as she still fought to regain her breath, and she tasted the strange taste that must be herself upon him.

"I think that will be a better memory to think of when I enter here," he murmured. Then he drew back to look at her and she saw uncertainty in his eyes. "You did enjoy it, did you not?"

"Very much." Her voice shook, both at the memory of how truly enjoyable it had been, and at the knowledge that she was blessed to gain a husband who would know and do such things. She reached up and stroked his hair back from his temple. "You surprised me, that was all." She saw his face relax a little. _Why do you always think of my pleasure before your own?_ she asked herself. _I love you dearly for it, yet this was not the gift I expected to give._

"Éowyn?"

She looked up to catch his gaze again. She realised she had lowered her eyes and been biting her lip while she pondered the puzzle that was her husband.

"Does something trouble you?"

Again there was that edge of worry in his words. _Do you think you are lacking? That you are a poor lover and I will grow tired of you? What words could I give you that would tell you more than you should know already from how we are together? Or do you fear that your skill allows me to mask my feelings? That it is not you I love but another still? How may I show you what is in my heart, if all that I have said and done and been with you is not enough to hush your doubts?_

She leaned forward and dropped a kiss on his cheek, then pulled back to look at him again. She stroked his hair to gentle him against her words. "Aye, you, my love. _You_ trouble me." She saw his frown begin to build again. "You think always of others and not yourself. I wished to give you your release, yet always you forestall me and give me mine."

"To give you pleasure pleases me." He sounded a little hurt.

"I know – and I rejoice in it." She breathed in deeply, remembering once more how sweet his touch had been. "Never think, I beg you, that I am not glad to have a husband who cares for me so. But at times I think it would bring me more pleasure to have you take pleasure for yourself and not think of mine first."

"I would not wish to take my pleasure at your expense." Now he sounded offended that she could think of him so.

"And I do not speak of that." She was quick to stop his lips with her fingertips. "I know that you are not such a man, and could never be so. But let me serve you, without you giving thought to what I shall gain. It will be enough for me to see you abandon yourself to joy, as it is for you with me."

"And what shall I do while you do this?" he asked, sounding a little puzzled.

"Whatever you will," she laughed. "But do not do it to please _me._ "

"Very well." He gave her a wry smile of assent.


	4. Chapter Four

She took a deep breath, aware that she had set herself a new and fearsome challenge. To face a legion of orcs in battle seemed easier, or at least more familiar. _Will I fail you, love?_ she wondered. She tried to marshal her memories of what had seemed to please him, and to think what else she might do, as she drew him back down towards her to seal the bargain with a soft kiss upon his lips. The chafe of his clothes against her skin suggested her next move. She sat up, bringing him with her, and began to work at the fastenings of his tunic, while she continued to exchange kisses with him.

She discovered – if she could trust that he kept to their bargain – that his caresses were not, as she had once thought, for her pleasure alone, for his hands continued to roam over her. At each move and turn as she undressed him, she tried to offer herself up to him, taking care to brush herself against him slowly and gently, teasing him with brief touches of her skin against his lips or fingertips. Yet she made sure she lingered long enough that he could capture her and hold her there for a while if he wished. She heard, as if for the first time, what had always been there: the low, happy purr of pleasure in his throat as she allowed him to possess her.

From time to time her hands faltered, as she struggled blindly with unfamiliar fastenings, or as his caresses sent waves of desire through her that swept away all reason. Though she wished to give satisfaction and not take it, she could not ignore her own delight at the tender brush of his fingertips and mouth. She quivered and hardened under his deft strokes despite her efforts to close her mind to the distraction. Each time she was forced to pull herself back from her own enjoyment to concentrate again on his needs, she marvelled at the depths of the self-control he must have shown in their lovemaking: to focus on her pleasure and not simply be caught up in the moment, as she had been before. Ever more keenly she understood how truly he cherished her and sought her happiness in all things.

Perhaps her fumblings with his clothing became an irritation to him, or perhaps he simply wished to speed the task, for he soon brought his hands to aid her, fingers tangling with fingers, until his tunic and undershirt had been cast aside. When she had tugged the last of the fine cloth away from his wrists, he circled her with his arms and pressed naked flesh to naked flesh, his lean muscles hard against her soft curves. She heard him let out a long, happy sigh as he nuzzled her neck. She closed her eyes and rejoiced for a while in the feel of his warm skin on hers, before she turned once more to her task.

Gently, she ran her hands over and over his back and arms, feeling him tremble under her touch. His skin was roughened here and there with old scars: arrow-wound and sword-cut and knife-thrust. Beneath, she felt the muscles of a swordsman and an archer, grown strong and skilled over long years of weary toil. She was filled with the need to make their marriage bed a compensation for all the cold nights he had passed on bare earth or in hard cots in Ithilien. She murmured his name and felt his arms tighten around her. He gave another of those heartfelt sighs, before he breathed "Éowyn" in reply. In the single word she thought she heard all the shades of their love: passion and desire were there but also respect and friendship, shared laughter and the meeting of quick minds.

For a time she simply held him close and listened to his slow breaths, before she pulled away a little and rested her hand on his chest. She felt the deep beat of his heart under her palm. Looking up into his face, she saw it had lost the hard, defensive edge it had worn earlier in the morning. A rush of joy welled up in her that she had succeeded for a time in banishing the demons that had plagued him.

Smiling, she brought them to their feet. He bent his head to press his lips to hers and she allowed him to exchange a few more teasing kisses before she drew back. Holding his gaze, she ran her hands down his back to the top of his hose. Slipping the tips of her fingers under the cloth, she slid her hands round to the front where they were laced. An expectant grin lit his face as she began to tackle the knot that bound the cords. She strove again to check her own responses as his fingertips once more trailed gently, yet with confidence, across her skin. She saw that he perceived her resistance, and that he too began to understand something of what his own concern must mean to her. Her joy turned to a more profound satisfaction as she saw how the bond between them was strengthened.

With her eyes otherwise occupied, her fingers could not help but touch him through the cloth as she pulled at the fastenings. She felt him stir under her hand and he took a deep, shuddering breath. She looked down then, to allow her to work more quickly. Soon he was as naked as she was.

Putting her palms on his shoulders, she guided him down to perch on the edge of the couch. She knelt before him again, sitting back on her heels and resting her hands lightly on his spread knees. She examined him, in all his pride, as she had never done before. Looking up, she saw he was blushing slightly and she reddened herself that she should make such a frank appraisal of him. Yet he did not seem displeased, but as if he was tautly waiting for her next move. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, his thumbs gently caressing the base of her neck. She felt his tension in all the places where they touched.

She looked back down. Her heart was beating rapidly and she ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips. Slowly, she reached out to carefully cradle the tender flesh at the root of him. He gave a small gasp and his hands tightened. Since their wedding night she had been hesitant to touch him like this, for it seemed to undo his control; with her pleasure in mind as well as his, she had thought he had not welcomed it. Now she gently moved her fingers and saw how he stirred in response. She heard his breathing grow quicker and shallower. She felt a thrill at the power she had over him: power she had scarcely realised she possessed. She had only dimly understood how his discipline and strength of will had allowed him to keep control, masking the same wild passions he aroused in her as he brought her to fulfilment.

Now, thinking of what he had done for her, she leant forward, breathing in his sweet musky scent. Cautiously, she touched her tongue to him and found that the taste of him that she loved was stronger here too. As she slid the tip of her tongue along him, he gave a moan and his hands gripped her shoulders still harder. She felt an answering tug deep inside her, an ache to feel him within her. Encouraged by her success, she repeated the caress, making her stroke longer and firmer. This time he choked back his groan, and she knew he was attempting not to cry out so loud that the servants would hear, even through the thick wood of locked doors.

She glanced up and saw that his head was thrown back, his eyes closed, his face set in the slight grimace that she knew meant pleasure. She felt the same burst of elation she had experienced when, after many frustrating days of bruised knees, scrambling for the reins and ignoring the occasional burst of derisive laughter from her brother and cousin, she had managed to weave Windfola through the training poles in the correct sequence with only her legs to guide him.

Faramir's hands stirred restlessly on her shoulders, breaking her from her contemplation of his face. Exultant, she bent back down and began to track soft kisses along the length of him.

"Éowyn!" His voice was ragged, trailing away. "Ah, love, do not tease me!" A quiver ran through him as she touched her tongue lightly to the very tip of him. "Take me in, I beg you, take all of me in."

 _Does he mean…?_ She hesitated for a moment, and then she understood what he was asking. _Of course it should be so! Are not men and women made differently? And yet…._ A little afraid, scarcely breathing, she shifted so that she could slide her lips around him. He shuddered and let out another stifled cry.

It felt strange and uncomfortable, and she had to concentrate, fearful she might hurt him. She tried to make her lips soft, to hold her teeth away from him, as she carefully moved her mouth over him. _How deep does he expect…?_ His hands were bearing down on her, and at each stroke she made it seemed he tried to push further into her. She put a hand on him to steady herself – or to hold him back from pressing deeper, she was not sure which. She struggled to match the rhythm of her own breaths to her movements, to keep her mouth wide and gentle, to ignore the growing pain in her knees as she knelt before him and the tightening grip of his fingers on her shoulders. She scarcely noticed that her own need for him had fled.

 _How much longer…?_ she wondered. His shivering moans spoke of his growing satisfaction, but she was not sure if she could continue long enough to bring him to release. Her movements felt jerky – _surely I will cause him pain? –_ and dizziness assaulted her. _I wished to give you the same pleasure you gave me, yet I did not think I would dislike it so. When…?_

Just as she thought she could bear it no longer, he was pressing his hands down on her even harder and thrusting into her. Her mouth filled with something and she gagged and pulled away from him. Without thinking, she spat the mouthful out. It landed on her thigh, white and viscous. Even as she choked, Faramir clamped one of his hands hard around hers. She turned back to him and caught his look of ecstasy as the last of his release swept over him.

 _At least I did not deny him this_ , she had time to think, before she found herself coughing once more at the bitter taste still in her mouth. A shudder ran through her at the memory of what it felt like to have him within her. Faramir, breathing hard, looked down, and she saw distress spreading across his face.

"Beloved," he gasped, "Did I hurt you?" He released his hold on her and touched her cheek for a moment, before he let his hand drop lightly to her shoulder. Glancing down, she saw that the white spots where his fingers had dug into her still showed, though they were beginning to fade. "Forgive me–." He slid off the couch and cradled her lightly in his arms. His touch was now very gentle, but she could not help shrinking from him. "Forgive me," he murmured again, his voice filled with sorrow as he stroked her hair. "Never before have I felt so much joy from release that way, yet I would not purchase any joy of mine at your expense."

She was weak and trembling, and she wanted to lean against him and take comfort from him, yet the shock of what had just occurred made her wary. She held herself stiffly in his embrace as she tried to sort through the confusion in her mind. She found herself once more coughing and swallowing to rid her mouth of the vile taste.

 _And should I not like that also?_ she asked herself, hardly noticing that Faramir had let go of her and was standing up. _He took such delight from this, and did I not say I wished to give him pleasure even though it pleased me not? And still I would._ She heard the clink of glass and metal behind her. _Yet to do this thing again…!_

Tears made hot tracks down her cheek as Faramir returned and knelt beside her. He pushed a goblet full of wine into her hand, and passed her a napkin, while he held out an empty cup for her to spit into. "Rinse your mouth out," he suggested quietly, as if she were a small child who had been sick.

Her hands were shaking and she spilt a little wine over her fingers as she drank. A wave of shame rolled over her as she swilled the wine around her mouth and then carefully spat it into the other cup. Should Faramir not now be lying in her arms in bliss, not acting as nursemaid to a foolish, frightened girl? And yet how could she have known it would be so terrible? _Why did he not warn me – nay, how could he have even asked me to endure this? Did he not know it would pain me? Ah, other women must have done this for him and not made complaint. Perhaps they are made of sterner stuff? Or perhaps I am a poor lover…._

Not really noticing what she was doing, she thrust the goblet back at Faramir. He set it carefully aside, while she used the napkin to wipe away the other evidence of her failure. She sensed him waiting for her to finish, but she could not meet the disappointment she thought she would find on his face, and she was struggling to keep in check her own anger at his thoughtlessness. _How could he not notice that I was suffering?_ she thought bitterly. _I would not have been so indifferent to his discomfort!_

At length, when it must have been clear to him that she had no more need of the cloth, he took it from her hand and tipped her chin up so that he could look into her eyes.

"Love, believe me. I did not think you would dislike it so," he said softly, his sorrow so evident in every word that she had not the heart to stay angry with him, "or that I would like it so much that I would forget myself. I would not have asked it of you if I had known it would be thus."

"Yet other women cannot find it such a trial, or you would not have wished it of me," she answered, her voice sounding very small and unsteady to her. Her anger at him was flowing away as a new realisation seeped in. She was discovering that, although it would be a rare event, her wise and kindly husband could sometimes be as foolish and mistaken as herself. Yet the knowledge of his folly did not allow her to excuse her own. "The fault must lie in me," she admitted. "I will try to do better next time."

"Nay, there is no fault in you," he answered quickly, shaking his head. "Perhaps all women dislike it," his face fell and he bit his lip thoughtfully, "but those I have known before would have kept silent because I paid them for my pleasure, not theirs." She read his shame in the way he slid his gaze away from her. "I would have had less pleasure in it had I known." He looked back at her and stroked her cheek with his thumb. "But you are not such as they and have no reason to do what I ask if it is distasteful to you. You are my wife and always I would place your happiness above my own. There will be no next time unless you wish it also. If there is no delight in it for you, how can I take delight?"

"Yet I wished to serve you, to please you." She lowered her head, feeling once more the burn of self-reproach that she had not fulfilled her promise to him, and that she was still so ignorant of the way things were between a man and a woman that she had not understood what the cost would be when she made her offer.

He shifted to sit with his back to the couch and held out his arms to her. She hesitated only for a moment before she came into them and let him wrap them around her. He began to rub her back to soothe her, and this time she leant against him and drew comfort from him, feeling the tension at last drain away from her. “Éowyn–,” he dropped a kiss on the crown of her head, “there are many other ways we can be together that we already know bring joy to both of us. There are other things I might teach you – and it is my part to teach you, and not expect that you should know what must be done or how it might be for you. The fault here lies in me.” He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “Yet I will not blame you if you do not trust me enough now to try these other things. And if you do, there will be no shame if you do not enjoy them all. I do not delight in all that I was shown when I wished to learn the many different ways of coupling, so that I might please my future wife as well as myself.”

Tipping her face up to watch him as he spoke, she saw his grave, troubled expression and was once again aware of how blessed she was to have found such a husband. She did not think her uncle, in his dotage, would have chosen well for her. King Théoden’s chief counsellor had spoken softly and to please in public, but she suspected that, if her uncle had yielded to his suit and given her to him, Gríma would have delighted in discovering what she most disliked, and then demanded it from her as her duty.

Reflecting on her good fortune, she now asked Faramir, “What things do not please you?” Seeing him frown, she added hastily, “I would be sure I do not ask of them of you.”

“I do not think you will.” He paused. “I learnt that there are some women who wish their men to be rough, even if it is only in play.”

She stared at him in surprise. _There are women who enjoy such pain?_ Still feeling the soreness in her shoulder where he had gripped her, she could scarcely credit that it might be so. Then a new thought occurred to her. “Perhaps there are also some men who are rough,” she shot back acerbically, “even if their women do not desire it.”

"Think you I am one of those men?" he asked, flushing. "Aye, I know some use their women so, but I hope I never gave any woman cause to think I wanted that." He lightly touched her shoulder. The marks of his fingers had faded, but not the memory. “I hope I did not give you cause to fear me. I am ashamed that I forgot myself so.”

Knowing only too well how he must be suffering from the censure of his own conscience, she smiled to reassure him. “I know it was not your intent, love, and that you would never seek to harm me.” She settled her head against his shoulder, still watching his face. Her smile grew broader as a new thought sprang into her mind. “Perhaps I should rejoice that it seems I have the power to make you forget your own nature? Has any woman ere this ruled you so?”

“Nay,” he returned her grin and stroked her hair back from her face. “Maybe for my sake, as well as yours, you should not present me with such temptation.”

“I think that would be wise,” she said with a grave air but a glint of laughter in her voice as she teased him. Then her mood turned sombre. “What else should I not ask of you?”

Again he paused before he answered. “To use bonds.” He looped his hand around her wrist gently for a moment and then released it. A shiver ran through him. “Pain and fetters I saw too much of in Ithilien to wish to seek them in the bedchamber, or ever to find pleasure in them.”

Éowyn remembered sights from the past year: the scarred wrists of a man who had been freed from the rowing benches of the Corsair ships; a rope burn on the neck of a boy led like a dog by his Dunlending captors; her own brother made sullen by imprisonment at Gríma’s command. And though no one had laden her with chains, she knew what it was to be trammelled like a wild thing, at the mercy of others. She could not believe she would relish giving herself over into any man’s power, even in the pursuit of pleasure. She too shivered. “I think those people must have led strange lives to wish for such things,” she said quietly. She gave a small shake of her head. “Do not fear that I would want them!”

She thought for a moment to ask him what did please him, but was afraid that it would prove unwelcome to her, and that she would not be able to conceal her dislike. _Nor should I do so_ , she reflected. Since, she did not wish to break the mood of reconciliation between them, she instead allowed a companionable silence to fall between them. She closed her eyes and relaxed against him, calmed by the gentle circles his hand was making on her back.

There was no single moment when she realised his caresses had turned from comfort to renewed play; they had simply slowed, become feather light, lingering. He did not need to speak of it but, as she met his gaze, she knew the mood between them had shifted once more.

He drew them down onto the floor amongst the tangle of their clothes, holding her close but lightly. She pressed herself gently against him. Face to face, they were silent, reading all that needed to be shared in each other's eyes. His free hand was absorbed in learning the contours of the span of roughened skin on her forearm that marked where she had been wounded a year before. Her fingers were investigating the slope where his neck met his shoulder. Though their reconnaissance extended no further, she could feel him stirring and hardening against her, while she grew ready for him. She noticed how her breathing had slowed to match his, and the way his pulse now kept pace with her own.

He did not need to make any gesture to signal his readiness or question hers; she simply knew when it was the moment for her to turn onto her back, bringing him with her. She welcomed him easily as he sank into her, filling her rekindled need. They moved quietly together. She drank in the sight of his face, his clear grey eyes laying bare his soul and speaking of love, while his lips whispered her name and other endearments. She answered him with sweet words and sighs of her own.

Her release when it came at last was not, as it had always been before, like a waterfall crashing down up on her; it was like the unhurried ripples of a slow flowing river, carrying her in gentle eddies until she was cast up on a sandy shore as the water ebbed away. His cry, a moment later, was muted and more heartfelt than she had heard before.

Afterwards, she lay in his embrace, her own arms wrapped around him, feeling drowsy and at peace. They were silent until Faramir gave a sudden low laugh. “My love,” he murmured, his breath tickling her cheek, “I fear you have failed in your mission. Before, I shunned this room because it was my father’s and filled with memories of him. Now I must shun it because I have such sweet new memories that I shall scarce be able to read two sentences together for thinking of you.”

Hearing the contentment in his voice, she tightened her hold a little. There were still many challenges ahead: taking her place in the court of Gondor as wife to the Steward; shaping her role as Lady of Ithilien; running houses whose ways and servants were strange to her; and other trials she could not yet foresee. She knew she would probably not meet all as successfully, though she believed she had skill and understanding enough not to fail entirely. She was at least confident that, no matter what lay in the future, she and Faramir would face it together, drawing strength and solace from each other. This first test had been the greatest – and she had passed. Now she smiled to herself and answered, with a low chuckle, “I think I shall have to find ways to ensure you cannot concentrate in any room in this house.”

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: The name of Faramir's horse, Neriend, means _saviour_ or _protector_ in Old English. _Rath Tewerdain_ , modelled after _Rath Celerdain_ , roughly translates as the Street of Woodworkers.


End file.
